The Year in Stories

Global Press Journal reporters hiked through regions that don’t have electricity in Indian-administered Kashmir, interviewed indentured servants in rural Nepal and watched women prepare to find and capture poachers for stories that turned out to be among our best of 2018. Read those and other stories here!

Can a group of women stop poachers in Zimbabwe’s Lower Zambezi Valley? One man, an Australian who is a former sniper, says they’re the best people to save endangered animals. GPJ’s Kudzai Mazvarirwofa visited the group’s camp and wrote about it here:

Zimbabwe doesn’t have it’s own money, but a surprise Oct. 1 government policy denominated all the U.S. dollars in bank accounts in the country as a local currency. GPJ’s Linda Mujuru wrote about that devastating change.

That change led to frantic currency exchange on Zimbabwe’s black market, where you can find any money you need, if you can afford it. GPJ’s Mujuru followed a currency exchanger in Harare, Zimbabwe’s capital city.

How can a reporter confirm claims that a proposed dam might displace tens of thousands of people? For this story, GPJ’s Raihana Maqbool hiked through an isolated section of Kashmir to talk to people who live near the proposed dam site, while the rest of the GPJ team created a to-scale simulation of the dam’s submersion area.

Zimbabwe’s leaders have claimed repeatedly during the past nearly four decades that their school system is among the world’s best. GPJ reporters there examined that claim to find out whether it was ever true and why schools there are so poorly-resourced now.

What happens if your father dies before he pays back a debt? In Nepal, some adult children of debtors are still trapped in indentured servitude, paying off debts their parents owed. GPJ’s Kalpana Khanal interviewed people who say their country’s haliya system makes it nearly impossible for them to escape.

Coffee from Democratic Republic of Congo can rank among the best in the world, but coffee growers there say profits don’t often trickle down. GPJ’s Mariam Aboubakar Esperance headed to her country’s coffee fields to talk with farmers who can’t afford to continue growing the crop.

Oil exploration could drive tens of thousands of indigenous Zoque people from their homes in Chiapas, Mexico’s southernmost state, but local opposition could thwart those plans. GPJ’s Adriana Alcázar González and Marissa Revilla wrote about those efforts.